White House National Security Adviser (NSA) H.R. McMaster has said that North Korea represents "the greatest immediate threat to the US" and that the potential for war with Pyongyang was increasing every day, the media reported.

The fall of Mosul, in July, in effect marked the end of the "caliphate" declared by Islamic State`s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, over parts of Iraq and Syria. The town of Tal Afar was cut-off from the rest of IS-held territory in June.

Donald Trump is the third US President to be grappling with the Afghan war, which began in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when the then US President George W Bush sent troops to overthrow the Taliban rulers, who had sheltered Al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden.

A report commissioned by the German government warned on Thursday that terrorist groups are increasingly using natural resources such as water as a weapon of war, controlling access to it, further compounding and exacerbating resource scarcities.